


That's Life

by rotg5311



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Apologetic Dean Winchester, Destiel - Freeform, F/M, Family, Fluff, Jack being Jack, M/M, Major Original Character(s), Minor Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Mutual Pining, Original Character(s), POV Dean Winchester, Pining, Slow Burn, Soft Dean Winchester, Top Castiel/Bottom Dean Winchester, after season 15, working a case
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:22:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23809084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rotg5311/pseuds/rotg5311
Summary: Dean and Jack go on a hunt to hide from life for a little while. Things don't make sense, Jack makes new friends, and Dean is still tiptoeing around his feelings.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

Dean hadn’t felt right in weeks. It had been day after day after day of stress, anxiety, and depression with little he could do to numb everything he was feeling. The only thing that helped were cases, which oddly enough were far and few in between. So when Jack came to him with a case Dean was up and out of the door within minutes. In fact, Jack hadn’t even finished telling him all the details by the time they pulled onto the main road.

“So what do you think it is?” The boy asked, looking up from his tablet at Dean. From the corner of his eye, he could see an article pulled up on Jack’s tablet regarding one of the deaths.

“Well there’s three bodies and most likely another one on the way if they stick to schedule. All of them chopped up and drained of blood. Which could be intentional or it could be from the ‘rip and tear,’ like you said.” Dean said, quoting Jack’s words that made him chuckle. There wasn’t a whole lot that pointed to this being there sort of thing, but they had gone on hunts with far less information than they had now. And Dean was itching to get out of the bunker for a couple days. “Maybe Vampires? Trying to cover it up as regular murders? You know, keep Hunter’s off their trail. Or…Maybe it’s just some whack job that wants to slice and dice some people.”

Dean shuddered, recalling every human-monster he had ever encountered. Monster’s he understood. People on the other hand, well they were crazy. And he didn’t want to touch that kind of insanity with a ten foot pole.

“So for things in common,” Jack said, idolly scrolling through the article he had pulled up. The Nephilim had taken an interest in learning the ins and outs of Hunting, and with not much else to do, Dean had been coaching him to the best of his ability. Besides, with everything that had happened, he figured Jack could use a little break from all the ‘Godly’ stuff he’s been dealing with. Jack had delegated powers, Heaven wouldn’t miss him for a week. If this even took that long. “There wasn’t much initially, I mean, two men and a woman. Black, White, Hispanic, ranging from twenty-seven to forty. But after a little digging I found out that two of the three victims visited a local locksmith the same day of their murder. I know it’s not much to go on and the Police already questioned him.”

“Well, it’s the best lead we got. And who knows, maybe he’s our guy. Or at the very least, maybe he saw something he thought was too weird to tell the cops.”  
The rest of the ride was silent. Or, as silent as the Impala could be. Dean had the music up as loud as he could stand, window rolled down, belting the lyrics at the top of his lungs. It was a nostalgic sort of carefree activity that he sometimes missed. Things had been so tense lately that Dean rarely had time for pleasure cruises anymore. Plus Sam always complained about the music being too loud, or the wind messing up his hair, or Dean’s bad singing voice. But Sam was glued to the hip with Eileen at the moment and Jack rarely complained about anything Dean did. It was a nice change.

The only downside was the ever looming reality of their situation that Dean couldn’t escape from no matter what he did. They had all been through so much that Dean should be thrilled that everything was over. Except that he wasn’t, and it had been eating away at him for weeks. Which was ridiculous, considering they had no more Chuck to worry about. They were free. But that was a problem in itself, and Dean wasn’t ready to admit it.

Jack, through a lot of incomprehensible bullshit, defeated Chuck, became the ‘light’, and inherited everything that came with it. He restored Heaven, replenished the Angels, and had a million other tasks Dean wasn’t even aware of. Sam was free to have the life he always wanted. Well, not completely, but he was settling down with someone who understood the life and it was probably the closest thing he would ever get to a compromise. Dean was happy for Sam and Eileen. Except when he wasn’t.

Which always made him feel terrible to think about. Of course he was happy for Sam. Why wouldn’t he be? It was a question he had asked himself a million times. And the answer surprised him, though not as much as he liked. Dean was jealous and he hated it.

He hated the tingling in the pit of his stomach every time he accidentally caught an innocent act of intimacy between the pair. He hated the longing he felt each night as he laid alone in his bed. He hated the yearning he felt course through his entire body every time he laid eyes on his long time Friend. And most importantly, he hated that he rarely saw that friend anymore.

For a long time Dean had been aware of his feelings for Castiel, choosing to push them down and ignore them wholeheartedly. It was the easiest option. When he loved Cas as a ‘friend’, the Angel died far too many times in Dean’s opinion. He could only imagine how much that number would increase if the ‘friend’ part of that equation changed. Dean had never thought of having more with Cas because it had always been out of the realm of possibility. But now… Well now things were different. There was no Chuck controlling their lives, there was no more life or death situations. There was only Cas and Dean. And Dean was terrified of having that kind of control.

He had been putting his feelings off for so long that he didn’t even know how to handle them now. Besides, it wasn’t like Dean could just make a move on his best friend, either. That was completely out of the question. What if Cas didn’t like him back? The Angel had only slept with women, that Dean was aware of, though he knew that didn’t really mean anything. Gender was something that meant very little to Cas, partly because he didn’t understand the full capacity of it, but mostly because in all the eons he had been alive, gender never played a role in his life. So Dean being a guy wasn’t as much of an issue in his head as Dean being Dean was.

Admittedly, there was a fair amount of bad blood between the two of them. Some of it was on Cas, though they both knew it was mostly all on Dean. Time and time again he had screwed up, and over the years it had taken its toll. His stomach still churned with the memory of Cas walking up the bunker stairs and out of his life, or so he thought. Even after Dean’s apology things weren’t the same. Better, but not nearly where he would’ve liked things to be between them.

Then Dean had let it go on for so long that he didn’t even know where to begin to fix things. Plus now there was the whole Jack becoming ‘God-adjacent’ thing, which meant Cas spent a lot of time in Heaven coaching the young Nephilim. It was such a mess that Dean had practically jumped for joy when he saw Jack in the bunker asking to go on a hunt together. He knew the boy was overwhelmed with duties of his own and he was glad they could spend some time together dodging the harder questions to life.


	2. Chapter 2

By the time they had rolled into town it was dark and there was a fourth victim added to the list. Nighttime being a totally inappropriate time for the Fake FBI to go knocking on doors added to the very long drive Dean had just done, he decided on getting a motel for the night.

“Not that you need sleep, Kid, but I do.” Dean said, throwing his bag onto one of the twin beds in the room. He contemplated getting one bed for himself, then decided against it in case someone wondered why two agents were ‘sharing’ a bed. In fact, he even thought of getting Jack a separate room, but sharing a room with Sam had become so second nature over the years that Dean figured it might be weird and even a little offensive if he sent the boy off on his own.

“Right.” Jack mumbled, practically ignoring Dean in order to curl up in the opposite bed and pull out his laptop. Dean had no doubt the boy wanted to catch up on some of his shows while he wasn’t preoccupied with Heavenly affairs.

By the time Dean had woken up the next morning he had practically forgotten all of his worries from the night before. He was ready to Hunt and more importantly, he was ready to eat.

“Up so soon?” Dean said teasingly to Jack.

“It’s ten, Dean.” Jack quirked an eyebrow at him. Two things were clear to Dean then. One, was that no matter how much he tried to persuade Jack otherwise, the boy would always go by Sam’s definition of ‘early.’ Two, was that Jack had actually listed to Dean last time about not wanting to wake up before brunch was an option, which was something Sam had never adhered to.

“That’s it? I could probably get a couple more hours…” Dean trained off, as he laid back down in bed. A pillow to his face had him silently laughing while pretending to be upset. “Fine. I’m up.”

The diner in town proved to be eventful for their waffles firstly, and their information on the case as an afterthought. Dean nodded along wordlessly as he listened to the waitress tell them how she had seen the third victim around the locksmith’s office the day before he died. The cops had never put two and two together since the man never hired the locksmith. 

After Dean had eaten enough to not get squeamish at the morgue, they made a trip there to check out the bodies. They were pretty much how Jack described, chopped up and bloodless. The examiner explained that that much blood loss was definitely possible with that method disposal, and even seemed like Jack was an idiot for suggesting the blood could’ve been drained before hand. It struck a wrong nerve with Dean and he nearly lost his temper before remembering that Jack didn’t like making a scene over the ‘little things.’ So instead, he found some demeaning bullshit excuse to send the examiner out of the room so they could take a look at the victim’s neck’s, which were all significantly more torn up than the rest of the body. When Dean managed to dig a fang out of one of the victims necks, it confirmed their suspicions that they were dealing with a Vampire. Probably a whole nest of them, with the amount of bodies turning up.

“So if it’s a Vampire, why are they cutting up their bodies?” Jack asked once they were back inside the Impala.

“Like I said, they’re probably just hiding their tracks. Even we weren’t one hundred percent sure it was a Vamp until I pulled out a fang. And that was just one, you know? Miss that and we might not have stayed on the case, or at least we start hunting something else.” Dean told him, trying to fit the pieces together in his head. Whoever they were dealing with was smart.

“I see.” Jack nodded along, contemplating the motive. “So where do we start?”

“I still think the locksmith is our best bet. Could be him, could be someone who knows him?”

He pulled up in front of a house. A really nice house. The whole neighborhood was fancy, and this wasn’t the biggest or even the nicest looking house on the street, but still, whoever lived in it was doing well for themselves. It was the kind of home Dean had dreamed about living in once upon a time. The two story Victorian house with a dog, a wife, and two point five kids. Back when he craved normalcy. Now… He wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted, but he was fairly sure Cas was at the center of it.

“So…” Jack paused, glazing over the house and the surrounding neighborhood. “I’m assuming there’s no nest here.”

“Hey, just because they live in a ritzy area doesn’t mean they’re not monsters.” Dean said unconvincingly. There could still be a nest inside, he just doubted they were making this kind of mess to draw attention to themselves. Usually people who had it good liked to keep it that way. But then again, maybe that was what they were trying to do by cutting up the bodies?

Dean rang the doorbell, listening to the off little tune that played in place of a regular chime. He rolled his eyes at the noise as he waited. Then, when what he thought was a decent amount of time went by he rang the doorbell again, pleased that it opened seconds later. A closed screen door sat between the two of them and a very confused looking lady.

“Hi.” She said, though it sounded like more of a question than anything.

“Hello, Miss. I’m Agent Noon and this is Agent Moore. We’re with the FBI.” Dean held out his fake badge, thankful that Jack did, too. As much as Dean loved Cas, Jack was just much easier to teach in matters like these. “We just had a few questions for Mr. Johnson.”

“Oh. He should be back any minute, did you want to wait inside?” She asked, looking slightly uncomfortable. It was times like these when Dean felt a slight twinge of guilt for pretending to be an FBI Agent. If they did it so easily, he wondered how many other people could do it with malicious intent. This woman had every right to be nervous, even if she didn’t realize it.

“That would be lovely.” Dean smiled his most authentic smile and followed the woman into her home. Or was it hers? For all he knew she could be the house keeper or a nanny or something. “I’m sorry, what was your name?

“Alice. Johnson.” She told them leading them into a living room and directed them to the couch. Two children sat on the floor in front of them staring up at the large screen TV that played some kid show. Once Alice paused the TV the children finally looked over their shoulders, noticing for the firs time that there were strangers in the house. “Go play somewhere else, we have company.”

The oldest child couldn’t have been more than five or six, though Dean wasn’t sure if the child in question was a girl or a boy. Not that it was any of his business, he was all for raising children in an open and loving environment, the complete opposite of how he had been raised, but the question still hung in his mind. Something distinctly said ‘boy’ with the racecar shirt and socks the child had on, but they wore a red tutu that matched the outfit nicely. Short hair meant nothing to Dean, the mother had short hair, so did the child.

The other child was definitely a girl. She had long bouncy blonde curls and striking blue eyes. She was decked out in all pink, and Dean couldn’t help but chuckle. She looked like an absolute princess. The two of them looked at each other, looked at the mother, then looked at Jack and Dean.

“Who are they?” The first child asked skeptically.

“They want to talk to Daddy.” She put one hand on her hip and pointed at the door with her other. “Now out.”

Hesitantly the older of the two walked out of the room with the younger closely behind. At the last second, the little girl stopped and turned to face Dean. She had a wide grin as she stuck out her hand. It took him a fraction of a second to realize she was trying to shake his hand. So, Dean did the only reasonable thing he could think of. He reached down and gave her the softest firm handshake he could muster.

“Hi, I’m Kitty.” She said in a soft voice. Dean had never been good at guessing ages, but he would say she was around four.

“Hi, Kitty, I’m Dean. This is Jack.” He said, pointing to Jack who had been silent up until this point. He smiled back with a confused look on his face. 

“Hi.” She gave them both a little wave before looking at the other child. They seemed to have a wordless conversation, which Dean would expect out of twins, not siblings a few years apart, before the older child rolled their eyes and went to shake Dean’s hand also.

“I’m Robin.”

Unfortunately, that did little to help Dean in guessing the child’s gender. Robin could swing both ways. So he just smiled and said hi. The two kids ran down the hall after that, disappearing into another room.

“Please, sit. Would you like something to drink? Water? Soda? Tea? Coffee?” Alice asked, looking at the two of them with a hint of distrust. It hadn’t been there moments before, and Dean was curious as to why it changed. Maybe she didn’t like strangers talking to her kids? It was reasonable enough. 

“Coffee for me.” Dean smiled as he sat on the couch, a little confused when Jack didn’t immediately follow suit.

“Um, just some water, please.” Jack said after a moment of hesitation.

Seconds later Alice was walking into the kitchen and Dean was staring at Jack, waiting for an explanation that didn’t come. “Dude, what?”

“I don’t...know.” The Nephilim’s face twisted in confusion, saying every word slowly as if unsure of what was going to come out next. “Something’s not… right?”

“Yeah, you’re telling me.”


	3. Chapter 3

In the time it took for Mr. Johnson to get home, Dean learned several things about the man’s wife. She loved cats, hated Feds, and knew a fair bit about the case already because she works with her Husband. He tried drilling her for questions, but all of her answers were the average run of the mill non-suspect ones. Just when Dean was beginning to think that being there was a huge waste of time, he heard the front door followed by screaming. A baby.

“That’s my husband now, I’ll go let him know you’re here.” Mrs. Johnson said, pushing the cat from her lap in an attempt to stand up. It was one of many Dean had seen wandering the house, and while it had seemed friendly enough, he was still weary. Thankfully due to a mishap with a cat on a case a few years back Cas had managed to cure Dean of his cat allergy. Still, Dean had never been much of a pet person. Probably due to the fact that John had never allowed them to own anything other than a fish one time that a tiny Sam had accidentally killed within days of having. It was a story he had never told Sam, and probably never would.

Dealing with Mr. Johnson was exhausting. The man was angry, standoffish, and seemed overall done with answering Cop’s questions. Dean couldn’t really blame him, considering he was sure this man was innocent and being asked the same questions over and over again. The only thing that struck him as odd was how Mr. Johnson seemed to bristle at the more ‘Supernatural’ questions Dean sprinkled into the conversation. Maybe the man just found the questions odd, or maybe he knew more than he was letting on to. However, Dean just didn’t think he was related to all the Murders going on in town. But there was one way to find out.

“Do you mind if I use your restroom?” Dean asked, giving Jack a sideways glance. The boy looked distressed at being left alone, considering it would mean he needed to hold the conversation alone in the meantime. Dean felt bad for it, but Jack would learn how to handle these things eventually.

With a detailed instruction on how to get to the bathroom, Dean was off down the hall, headed in the general direction. Doing this sort of thing was a little more risky with so many people in the house. Especially when he didn’t know where they were at the moment. Or even how many there were. Dean looked around for pictures on the wall that might indicate if there were more people in the house other than the ones he already met, but found nothing. It struck him as odd that someone with three small children had no family photos anywhere.

Soundlessly Dean snuck down the hall, keeping an ear out for someone coming around a corner or out of a room. Behind the first door he heard the sound of children laughing, meaning it was off limits. It also meant he had located two of the people in question. The next room was the bathroom, which looked normal enough as Dean peeked his head in real quick. Next came a bedroom that Dean didn’t have a chance to search because he heard a voice coming from down the hall. He had just enough time to haul ass back to the bathroom and make it look like he had been walking out of it as Mrs. Johnson came around the corner holding a baby.

“You scared me.” Alice said as she looked at him wearily. He noted the way she seemed to curl her child into her side more. Dean wasn’t sure what it was about him and her children that she had a problem with. He was great with children and most Mother’s seemed to know that intuitively. Maybe it was because he was a stranger? He had a strange feeling that it was something more than that.

“I’m sorry. Just using the restroom. Who’s this handsome devil?” Dean asked, stepping closer to get a better look at the child in her arms. Her grip tightened, but she leaned the baby his way.

“This is Tony.” She told him, with a smile. Dean looked him over, and couldn’t help but get just a little unsettled at the way the baby was looking back at him. It was like Tony was reading him like a book. Dean hated it. ‘Say something nice, you’re being a dick to a child.’ He had to remind himself.

“I love his gloves.” It was the truth. He loved the whole outfit. Baby clothes always made his heart feel fuzzy. It barely even registered how weird it was for a baby to be wearing so much clothing inside, especially when it wasn’t even winter. Tony was decked out in long sleeves, pants, socks, and gloves. Dean managed to catch just a sliver of a black mark on the baby’s ankle between the sock and pant leg before he was shifting again and it was gone. It was the oddest thing Dean had seen in a while and he had no guess as to what it might be.

“Oh, yeah. Tony’s not really from around here. He gets cold very easy.”

Not from around here? Oh. Adopted. That probably explained how Kitty had blonde hair and blue eyes, and how Robin had emerald green eyes, while their Mother and Father both sported brown hair and brown eyes. Dean wasn’t one to judge. After all, he had sort of adopted a child of his own. At least these kids were human.

When Dean finally made it back to Jack, the boy was eager to leave. It was something Dean could get on board with, considering they had reached a dead end with the Johnson’s. They had seemed a little odd, but Dean just didn’t think any of them were suspects. Sure, he had been wrong before, but for now he was willing to look into other options. What those options were, he wasn't entirely sure. It felt like he had a few puzzle pieces scattered at his feet, only to look at them and realize they weren’t from the same puzzle at all. And that sounded like a problem for Sam.

“Hey man, call me back when you get this.” Dean decided to leave a message after the second time his Brother didn’t answer the phone. No doubt Sam and Eileen were doing… something Dean would rather not think about. “I want to run some things by you about this case that don’t make any sense. We’re doing fine here. Just a little confused.”

Dean made sure to clarify that he didn’t need Sam showing up, in case his little Brother heard the message and decided to hightail it all the way out there for back up. He had made sure to reassure Sam before they left that he could manage it with just Jack. There was no need to drag his Brother away from his honeymoon-like stage with Eileen for something that was just giving Dean the runaround.

Fully not expecting her to answer, Dean gave Eileen a call as well. Sometimes the repeated vibrations of her phone from a call got her attention more than just sending her a single text would. When he got no reply Dean sighed, knowing who he was about to call next and utterly dreading it. It wasn’t that Dean didn’t want to talk to Cas. It was just that things had been awkward between them lately and it was getting a little difficult to handle. Bracing himself Dean hit call, silently hoping this one went to voicemail as well, knowing full well that it wouldn’t.


	4. Chapter 4

“Dean, what’s wrong?” A concerned gruff voice answered on the second ring before Dean could even say hello. On one hand Dean couldn’t blame him for worrying. With everything that had happened with Chuck. And now he was filling in for Jack in Heaven. On the other hand Dean felt a prick of annoyance that Cas had thought their entire trip went to shit so soon.

“What? Nothing.” He couldn’t help but roll his eyes as he paced the empty hotel room. It had been the right move sending Jack on a food run. “I just need a soundboard for a case.”

“Oh. Ok.” The overwhelming sound of relief reverberated through the phone. “Lay it on me.”

Dean couldn’t help but chuckle. Cas had been picking up on more and more lingo as the years went on. And every time the Angel picked up on something new it made Dean laugh. There was just something pure and hilarious about Angel’s of the Lord altering their speech to fit in.

It didn’t take Dean long to explain things to Cas, and by the time he was done there were more questions than he had answers.

“The dismemberment is odd. What exactly did Jack say about the family?” Cas asked.

“I don’t know. Something was off with them but he wasn’t sure what.” Dean had questioned the boy once they were safely back in the Impala. Jack, of course, couldn’t give him a definitive answer. “Said it wasn’t anything bad so, your guess is as good as mine.”

“I don’t know what to do with that information.”

“Yeah, neither do I. But we’ll figure it out, eventually. I don’t really know who to check out next.” Usually Sam was the one finding suspects to question. So far Dean had bupkis.

“Well, I could always come help if you need it.” Cas’ voice was so sincere it made Dean’s stomach tingle. Of course he wanted Cas here. But he also didn’t. Things were complicated and he hated it. It almost made him yearn for the days when he could simply ignore his feelings. Almost.

“I appreciate it, Buddy. But you have things to do in Heaven. Jack and I can manage for now.” Dean considered taking it back and asking Cas to come help out, even if there was nothing more the Angel could actually do for the case besides be a source of entertainment. But even he couldn’t stoop that low to steal Cas away from actual important things. “So, uh, how are things up there?”

“Complicated, I suppose. But good. Things are- they’re running a lot more smoothly with Jack in charge. He’s a good kid, Dean.”

“I know.” Unspoken words floated between them. Every time Dean had doubted Jack. Every time he doubted Cas’ judgement in the boy. Dean had been wrong time and time again, and it was part of the rift that had torn them apart. “He’s doing great here, too. Questioned the coroner alone like a pro.”

Their conversation had gone on for much longer than Dean had anticipated. So when Jack walked through the door hands full of food, Dean almost pulled a gun on him out of reflex for the sudden disturbance. Saying goodbye to Cas was becoming harder and harder even though it had absolutely no reason to. There was no doubt he’d talk to the angel again soon. Maybe it was the constant ‘you need to tell him’ screaming at the back of his mind that made hanging up so difficult.

“Did you get the pie?” Dean asked more out of reflex than anything. In all the time Jack had been doing food runs the boy had never once forgotten Dean’s favorite snack.

“Yes, Dean.” Jack sounded exasperated. Jack had never grown to like pie the way Dean did, but that didn’t mean he could forget the only thing Dean ever demanded. “They had apple and cherry. I wasn’t sure what to get you so I grabbed both.”

Jack pulled out two hefty slices of pie and set them in front of Dean, along with the bacon burger and fries he had ordered as well. Sam would often ‘forget’ the pie when Dean ordered something that would clog his arteries that bad. And here Jack was bringing him two slices.

“Dude, you’re awesome!” He didn’t waste any time digging in to the feast before him. Thankfully Jack didn’t order himself any Rabbit Food, but Dean did notice something that looked oddly like avocado on his sandwich. At least there was bacon, too.

“So did you talk to Sam?” Jack asked, mouth half full of sandwich.

“No. Never answered.” Dean shook his head. If Sam didn’t call back in a few hours then maybe he would be worried. Maybe. Sam and Eileen had been attached at the hip since they yoinked Chuck out of the picture. He couldn’t blame them for wanting a little quality time alone, without a case. “I talked to Cas though and he had nothing for me either. So I say we check the crime scenes next and see if the police missed something that could be useful to us.”

Dean wasn’t exactly sure what that something could be. There wasn’t any surveillance footage to go off of. There also hadn’t been any witnesses. Either they needed to find something soon or his only other option was to do a little B&E at the Johnson’s to see if there was anything to find.

Jack nodded along for a moment, looking like he had a question. Dean waited a minute before the boy shyly asked, “What else did Castiel say? Is everything ok without me in Heaven? Does he need me there for anything? Not that I want to leave you but-”

“He’s fine.” Dean cut him off, knowing the rabbit hole Jack was about to go down. He had a habit of over explaining things and Dean didn’t really feel like listening to him ramble for five minutes about how he liked Dean and Cas equally. “Said everything’s holding up great because you’ve been doing such a good job.”

“Oh. Ok.” Jack’s cheeks tinted pink with the compliment and Dean tried his best not to twitch right out of his seat. Heart to heart moments weren’t really his thing and he was getting dangerously close to having one with Jack. Of course he wanted to tell the boy just how great he was doing at everything. But that thought also made him feel semi nauseous. So instead, Dean took a big bite of his burger and hoped the conversation would pass. “What else did you and Cas talk about?”

“Uh.” Dean bristled at the question, though he wasn’t sure why. It had been innocent enough. It wasn’t like Jack had said anything even hinting at Dean’s feelings. Hell, Jack didn’t even know. Did he? God, all this paranoia shit was really getting to him. “Not much. You came back with the food when we were done talking about the case. He offered to come down, but I said we could handle it ourselves.”

“I see.” Jack told him. Dean felt another prickle of unworthy paranoia as Jack pulled out his phone to text someone. He really needed to do something about his feelings for Cas. Moments like this were happening far more often than he was willing to deal with.


	5. Chapter 5

“Sammy? What the hell?” Dean asked as he opened the door to his Brother and Eileen standing outside, bags in hand. He had never even heard back from Sam after he called and wasn’t sure why the man had showed up in the first place. He said he was fine on his own. Well, not his own. He still had Jack. And they were doing fine, more or less.

“Hey.” Was the only greeting he got as Sam strolled into the motel room and straight to all the information about the case sitting on the shitty little motel room table.

“What are you guys doing here? I said we had this handled.” Dean would be mad if he wasn’t secretly relieved. They had checked out the crime scenes last night and still had a whole lot of nothing to go on.

“Well you needed help.” Sam said, looking everywhere but at Dean. Then he sighed and rolled his eyes before adding, “And there’s a nice little couples retreat in Vermont. It’s like a few hours away from here. Figured we’d check it out afterwards.”

“Uh-huh. Well, the two of you can go straight there if you want. We can manage on our own.” Dean told them, not really meaning it. He had so much on his mind lately that he knew it must be affecting his ability to work this case. There was something here he wasn’t seeing and that normally wasn’t like him.

“We already booked a room here for a couple days. Might as well stay and help. So tell me everything you got.” Sam said, plopping down in a chair next to Eileen, who thankfully didn’t look upset about being there instead of at a little B&B in Vermont.

Once Dean had told Sam everything they had done, seen, and heard, he waited for words of wisdom to come flowing. Instead he got a shrug and a puzzled look.

“It sounds like that family is our best bet.” Sam said, looking through the papers one more time, as if he missed something. At that point Dean was wishing that maybe he did, so they could have a little more to go off of.

“Yeah but they had kids. Vampire don’t breed.” Then he looked toward Eileen as if she had another answer. “Do they?”

Instead she just shrugged and shook her head. Apparently she had been under the impression that they don’t as well. Dean had always assumed monsters were made, not born. Yet time and time again he was proven wrong, and each time it was like a slap to the face. However, vampires in particular had always seemed like something that just couldn’t reproduce.

“No.” Sam said firmly, then shook his head. “Well, maybe. Who knows? Look, all I’m saying is that the guy has a connection with all the vics, so we should search the house. And follow them around. Maybe there’s something you guys missed. Hell, maybe they’re not even vampires. Plenty of things suck blood, and plenty of things kill.”

“Yeah, I’d be willing to chalk it all up to that guy’s just a whack job, but I found a fang.” Dean had looked at it closely enough. Plenty of monsters had fangs, but vampires had very distinguishable ones. Someone in that town was a vamp, they just had to figure out who.

In the end they had decided that Eileen would follow Mr. Johnson. He had never seen her so he wouldn’t be suspicious, she wasn’t particularly threatening looking like Sam was, though Dean knew she could handle herself more than well enough, and plus she was a girl. It sounded a little stupid, but James Johnson had been a dick to both Dean and Jack, and he was hoping the man would be a little bit nicer to Eileen if it came down to them talking at any point. Dean, Jack, and Sam were in charge of waiting until Alice and the kids left the house for the day, which hopefully they would, so they could search the house. Dean wasn't exactly sure what they were looking for, but no one else had a plan.

Unfortunately for Dean, it took almost all morning for Alice to leave the house. They had been staked out in the car for well over an hour waiting for the chance to sneak in. He was just about to send Jack in to put everyone to sleep when he saw the front door open.

“Come on guys, hurry up.” He heard Alice’s voice faintly enough from across the street. She was holding Tony in her arms as she stood just over the threshold waiting for her other kids. “Robin, just forget it. I’ll buy you a new one at the store.”

“Wait a minute.” Dean said, staring at the two children that followed Alice out of the house and into the car. The younger one, Kitty, looked about the same as yesterday, except for the frown that covered her face and the hat that she kept pulling down further on her head, to a ridiculous degree. The other child… well that’s what Dean was confused about. He had clearly heard Alice call for Robin, but that wasn’t who Dean was looking at. Instead, a child of the same height and different race walked in place behind them. Dark ebony skin, a wild, untamed afro, and a set of familiar green eyes crawled into the van. Dean watched them pull away before he looked to Jack, who thankfully seemed just as confused. “Well that’s different.”

“What?” Sam looked at the both of them, waiting for an explanation.

“Well the older kid is definitely a he for one. Yesterday I wasn’t even sure.”

“Dean, it’s a different time, people are-” Sam started on what seemed like it was going to be a very long winded speech about Dean being a closed minded bigot.

“Yeah, I know that, and that’s not what I meant, Sammy. He’s black.”

“He’s what?” Sam looked at him incredulously waiting for more of an explanation.

“Look, Sam, she had three white kids yesterday and now she doesn’t.” It made him feel a little racially insensitive being so blunt, but Dean didn’t know how else to make Sam understand.

“So, what? You think he's a shifter? That doesn’t make sense. Is it the whole family? Do you think they’re the ones killing all these people?”

“No but what if it’s like Bobby-John?” Dean threw the name out there, knowing Sam wouldn’t forget the shape shifter baby they had come across before. “He couldn’t control changing. He saw it, changed into it, and then cried about it. The other two kids look the same, so they've gotta be normal. Right?”

“Yeah, but they came after Bobby-John. How does she have a kid that’s so old? It’s what, like six?” Sam asked as the three of them climbed out of the Impala and headed for the now empty house.

“I don’t know. Maybe it was some really weak shifter. Maybe they lost track of the kid. Maybe with the Alpha gone, there’s no one to go around and snatch the babies back. She said something about them all being adopted. Maybe they just picked out a bad baby and found out the hard way.” Dean was just spit-balling ideas at that point. He wasn’t sure how a shapeshifting kid fit into their Vampire hunt. But hopefully they were about to find out.


	6. Chapter 6

“If it’s just a shifter that came back for his kid,” Sam pondered as they looked around the house. The two of them had started off toward the front while Jack wondered off toward the back alone. Realistically he knew Jack could handle himself better than Dean could. But still, he would prefer to keep him close. “Then what’s with all the vamp stuff? No blood in the bodies, fangs stuck in their neck? I mean, I don’t get it.”

“Yeah, you’re telling me.” Dean shuffled through the paperwork on the desk, looking for anything that caught his attention. “I know at least two of the victims had kids. Maybe he can’t find the right family, which would mean the Johnson’s are in danger.”

“But none of those kids got hurt, just the parents. And not even both the parents.”

“None of this makes sense.” Dean pulled out a file from one of the drawers, surprised at what it contained. “Huh. There’s a lot of information about our dead guys in here.”  
“What?” Sam asked, moving from the filing cabinet to look over Dean’s shoulder at the papers. “It kind of looks like… they’re working this case?”

“So, what? You think they’re hunters? Raising a shifter?” Dean shook his head. Just when he thought things were confusing enough. But it wouldn’t be the first time someone attempted that situation. 

“Sam, Dean.” Jack’s voice called from another room. Dean had almost forgotten the boy, which had him feeling like an ass considering how distressed Jack’s voice seemed.

It had taken them all of thirty seconds to get into the basement where Jack was, and yet Dean’s heart was pounding out of his chest. He’d been hunting for his entire life and he still got scared from time to time. Sure, he had seen a lot worse than a sketchy ass basement, but he couldn’t really help it. Some things were just instinctual. Like the tiny prickle of fear in his spine at racing into a potentially dangerous situation to save his pseudo-son.

Shelves lined the walls full of things Dean didn’t recognize. A table full of large and small trinkets sat in the middle of the room catching Dean’s attention before his eyes landed on Jack. The boy stood off to the corner of the room in front of an opened refrigerator.

“Jack?” Dean holstered his gun, sure that nothing was about to jump out at them for now.

Dean had to stare into the fridge for a minute before he realized what exactly he was looking at. Containers full of organs, much too small to be human lined the shelves as well as a handful of blood bags. It took him another minute before he could process what exactly he was seeing.

“Vampires don’t eat organs.” Sam beat him to saying it.

“No they do not.” Dean said, shutting the fridge and making is way over to the shelves he had seen earlier. The more he looked at everything, the more uncomfortable he became. “Does this look like Voodoo to you or witchcraft?”

“I think it’s both, Dean. Look at all these artifacts. This is some old stuff.” Sam pointed to a few things Dean recognized from the Bunker. It looked like the Johnson’s had practically anything and everything for all kinds of spells. Don’t get him started on the contents of the table, which Jack was skimming through and even touching.  
“Come on, man.” Dean scolded the boy. “Don’t get sucked into a cursed object or anything. Who knows what these guys have down here.”

“This is authentic.” Jack told them, holding something Dean couldn’t even recognize in his hands. It looked dirty and old and those were its only distinguishable features. “Are they...witches?”

“Witches, hunters, shifters, vampires, and god knows what else.” Dean said, gesturing toward the animal organ filled refrigerator. The more clues they got, the less he understood about the case. Which was saying something because he barely understood any of it from the get go. The sound of a door opening followed by voices and footsteps flooded through the house. Pulling out his gun, Dean nodded toward Sam to do the same. “Let’s go get some answers.”

Sneaking silently up stairs was a skill Dean had developed from a very young age. It was needed both for hunts and for sneaking out of Bobby’s house when John would leave them there. It was times like these when Dean was thankful for learning to do it, as well as thankful that Jack could pick up on those things so easily. Or maybe Jack had just flown to another part of the house?

“Mommy.” A little voice called from somewhere down the hall as Dean reached the top of the stairs. “What’s that smell?”

The pounding throb in Dean’s chest stopped immediately. If there were any doubts in his mind before, which there weren’t, then that proved they were monsters. Almost all monsters had an excellent sense of smell. That also meant that they’d been made. Moving faster, this time not caring about the noise his feet made, Dean took off toward the front door just as Alice and the kids were reaching it. At the sound of Sam’s gun cocking, Alice let her hand fall from the doorknob as she whipped around in order to put her two children behind her. She angled the baby as far away from Dean as she could, much like she did the first time they met. It rubbed Dean the wrong way that she thought they would just start shooting at children, monsters or not.

“Hey, Alice. I think we need to talk.” Sam broke the tense silence, stepping forward, slightly lowering his gun.

“I have nothing to do with the bodies around town. I don’t know what’s doing it.” She told them, firmly. Alice looked terrified and it almost made Dean feel bad. Anyone would be scared with three strange men holding guns in their house. But add in some kids and some monster blood? Well he was surprised she hadn’t just run out the door. He was glad she knew she couldn’t make it far with three kids. There was no way Dean wanted to do a gun showdown in the middle of the driveway.

“Really? Cuz we found a lot of suspicious stuff in the basement.” Dean said, referring to the blood and the hearts first and the museum of hoodoo secondly.

“I collect things. I sell and trade stuff. It’s good money” Alice replied, shifting from foot to foot. She looked like she wanted to bolt, though Dean knew she wouldn’t. “That’s not a crime.”

“I was talking about the fridge. Blood, hearts. You know, the good stuff.” Dean looked at the two faces sticking out from behind her legs. They looked terrified. “I already know Robin’s a shifter. What about them? Or is it you? Or maybe your husband?”

“It’s us.” She confirmed without hesitation. “My husband and I. Vetala and a skinwalker. It’s why we can’t have kids of our own. But we had nothing to do with what’s happening around town.”

Dean looked at Sam, trying to get his head around the situation. It seemed… odd. Like he was only hearing a half truth, but he wasn’t sure where the lie was. They had no proof that the Johnson’s were murdering people. A Vetala could explain why the bodies were being drained, for the blood. And this was a rich, successful family, so chopping them up could be a way to try and keep themselves out of trouble. Yet, Dean couldn’t figure out the heart part. If they were already killing someone, why not take the heart, too? He had never heard of a skinwalker living off animal organs either. Dean could tell by the look on Sam’s face that he could tell something was up, too. It took them a few minutes to get Alice to calm down enough to sit on the couch with them and talk everything over. Monster didn’t necessarily mean evil, and until Dean could put the blame on her without a doubt, he didn’t feel comfortable slaughtering a Mother in front of her children.


End file.
